Researchers tested the skin, clothing and personal protective equipment, or PPE, of health care workers after caring for patients and found they are routinely contaminated with respiratory viruses, demonstrating the importance of complete hand hygiene and appropriate PPE use and doffing practices to prevent transmission of pathogens, they said.
Writing in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the researchers noted that such contamination can contribute to the spread of pathogens transmitted via contact, increasing the risk for infection in health care workers (HCWs) and the risk for spread to the health care environment. They noted that PPE doffing and donning is one way pathogens may be “transferred to the clothing and skin of HCWs.”
